Early concept renderings of Sylvan Lake's Pogadl Park. (Town of Sylvan Lake)

By Sheldon Spackman

moving ahead

Work to proceed as scheduled on Pogadl Park in Sylvan Lake

Apr 16, 2020 | 2:56 PM

Work will proceed as planned this year on a new sports and recreation park in Sylvan Lake.

On Tuesday, council accepted for information status updates on several parks and protective services projects for 2020, including that of Pogadl Park along Highway 11.

Joanne Gaudet, communications coordinator with the Town of Sylvan Lake, says the Pogadl Park project is currently in phase 1 of a multi-phase development.

“Underground utilities, the pre-servicing, development of the park entry and roadway, of course the baseball diamonds are a big thing identified in phase 1,” she explains. “So phase 1 includes all of the planning, all of the approvals for the design and everything like that. Then we’ve got the baseball fields. Some of the work has been expedited because we do have the stadium going in for the Sylvan Lake Gulls (Western Canadian Baseball League team).”

Concept rendering of the baseball stadium planned for Pogadl Park (Aqil Samuel)

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Gaudet notes additional amenities such as soccer fields and volleyball courts will be part of future phases.

“We’re expecting the ball team to be up and running by 2021, so that would involve at least the completion of parking, roads, servicing – the big timely stuff,” she points out. “And of course, construction of the roughly 2,200 seat stadium, which the baseball fields would be complete at that time as well. Their season starts in August, so late summer.”

There isn’t much to see yet at the future site of Pogadl Park in Sylvan Lake (rdnewsNOW/Troy Gillard)

Elsewhere, Sylvan Lake’s Centennial Park playground remains earmarked for replacement, but now with a revised timeline.

Gaudet notes that because of the playground’s high rate of use there are signs of wear and tear starting to show.

“It was originally installed by the province,” she recalls. “We identified it as a need because it is one of our landmark playgrounds in the community. We went through a bit of a public consultation process and had a lot of public participation and a lot of interest around it.”

After asking the public what components of the playground were important to them, Gaudet says seating for parents and shade structures were among the much-wanted features identified.

“We submitted a request for tender and the update from council last night (Tuesday) was that we were seeking to award that, but that we do have other options as well,” she explains. “With the COVID situation, we originally had a budget of $350,000 with $100,000 of that to be fundraised, which we determined wasn’t necessarily an ideal option for us at this point. So our budget is $250,000.”

Based on their received submissions, Gaudet says a structure, as well as a company that could provide the Town with the type of playground that is needed, was identified. However, council has opted at this time to request more information from administration before awarding the project.

“They (council) want to know what the availability of additional funding is for the project,” she explains. “So maybe reviewing our future capital projects and seeing if there’s an opportunity to reallocate. They also wanted to know if perhaps we could consider at the $250,000 mark – designing the playground in such a way that provides us options to add on in the future.”

As a result, Gaudet says administration will bring additional options back for council to consider at an upcoming meeting.

“We do intend on proceeding with it, it’s just in what capacity and to what extent,” adds Gaudet. “We just want to see some additional funding options or maybe if there is an option for a staggered or staged approach to construction.”

Other parks and protective services projects planned for 2020 that will also proceed as previously planned, include Sylvan Lake Park upgrades, dog park improvements, post and rope improvements, and skate park improvements.

Leader Field fence and parking lot improvements will be postponed.